


Mikaela and the Wreckers

by darthneko



Category: Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Fix-It, Other, Post-Movie(s), Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-30
Updated: 2011-06-30
Packaged: 2017-10-20 21:24:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darthneko/pseuds/darthneko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of fix-it AU ficlets for DotM, in which Mikaela has become the movie!verse answer to Verity and the Wreckers came with their actual geek.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mikaela and the Wreckers

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Warrior Goddess 1 - Earth](https://archiveofourown.org/works/173913) by [White Aster (white_aster)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/white_aster/pseuds/White%20Aster). 



> Don't get me wrong, I liked a lot of DotM. But there was a lot of gratuitous or off or just plain stupid bits too. And I'd have to say getting rid of Mikaela was one of them - no offense to the actress who played Carly, who did as much as she could when the director and makeup and costuming were all determined to make her Damsel in Distress T&A, but I'm pretty sure Mikaela would have not only rescued herself but probably cut off Laserbeak's head to add to her cassetticon collection.
> 
> Since it's established that Mikaela dumped Sam, the question becomes - where's Mikaela? And the answer, in my mind, is pretty obvious - DUH. With the giant alien robots. Maybe the Wreckers. Who have in (IDW) canon adopted humans as team members before (ie, Verity). So this is post-movie haze inspired bits of fic involving Mikaela (who is heavily borrowed from Aster's "Warrior Goddess" and "Then We Live A Million Years" 'verses) and the Wreckers.

Epps' first up-close look at the Xantium drew a low whistle from the man as he craned his head back - and _back_ \- to take in the towering structure. The space shuttle, a massive icon of human achievement, clung gamely to the side of the craft like a lost limpet, dwarfed and rendered obsolete by its vastly larger alien cousin.

"Whoa." It wasn't the most eloquent of observations, but from Sideswipe’s grunt as the frontliner shifted upright it was close enough. Epps settled his bag firmer on his back, absently thumbing his sunglasses up. "That is one big mother."

"It's a light class battlecruiser," Sideswipe told him bluntly, and it just said so much about Epps' life that lines straight out of science fiction movies didn't phase him any more than having his silver Corvette stand upright and utter said lines did. "A strike ship. Big enough to take a medium crew, but you can pilot it with just two or three if you have to." The frontliner gestured, rolling smoothly forward. "Come on."

Which was how Epps began his so-called retirement by meeting the Wreckers, and really, it wasn't so different from being back at base, one crack team of gung-ho crazy gun toting adrenaline junkies traded for another one except that now Epps didn't have to salute any of them (and Leadfoot had bluntly told him they'd rather he didn't), and he wasn't wearing the headache of the chain of command. He was there to fix shit and haul shit and ride herd on a supply line and he never thought he'd be glad for a desk job but he wanted to see his girls grow up, dammit, and NEST was no place for any kind of good life insurance. Support, he told himself. Now he was just support, the guy that the gung-ho flyboys took for granted, and damned if it didn't feel _real_ good. This wasn't NEST, not any more, and he was just another face in the ground support crowd.

At least, until one very familiar voice jolted him right out of the daydream with a clang of metal on metal and a string of paint blistering phrases in the muddled mix of English and translated Cybertronian that more than a few guys on base had picked up. The voice, however, was anything but male. "Roadbuster! Roadbuster, you piece of pipe sucking slag, what're you trying to do? Kill me?"

Epps peered into the hangar the voice was coming from and had to stop and check. No. Still at NASA. Still not as base. Not NEST. And not, he'd thought, open to purely civilian contractors. "...'Kaela?"

Mikaela swung towards him and they'd all long ago learned to back off when that look was on her face - Epps found himself taking a step back, the clipboard in his hands raised defensively, before registering that she didn't have anything in her hands. They both froze and then Mikaela shoved the fallen tendrils of her hair out of her face, leaving grease smears on her cheek, and broke into a grin. "Bobby! What're you doing here?"

"Retirement," Epps answered reflexively. "What're _you_ doing here?"

"Wrangling a bunch of idiots," she answered. "Speaking of..." She pushed past him - he let her - and leaned half out the door. "ROADBUSTER! Boy, you'd better get your aft back here or I'll bust it for you! What the fuck is this pallet still doing in here? I told you I need it out on the north launch pad!"

It was remarkably, exactly, terribly just like being back on NEST base, though there the yelling was usually being done by Ironhide or Ratchet. Epps sighed and tried to rub the sudden onslaught headache away. "Ah... Mikaela... you do know he's the head of the Wreckers, right?"

"Head of being the pain in my ass, you mean," Mikaela shot back, but the look she gave him was sharp and clear, one finger coming up to cock at him warningly. "Also? My boyfriends. No poaching."

Epps was still trying to think of a good response for that - he was torn between _"that's so wrong"_ and _"damn, girl, you weren't kidding about trading Sam in for an upgrade, you've got balls"_ because he honestly didn't know if she was serious or not - when Roadbuster stomped in. "You are the _pushiest_ little femme," the Wrecker huffed, effortlessly shouldering a pallet of wrapped goods that probably weighed an easy ton.

"Pushiest little femme with the tiniest little hands," Mikaela replied sweetly, wiggling grease smeared fingers at him. "And you know you love it. North launch pad, big boy, chop chop. Some of us don't have all century."

Venting sharply, Roadbuster stomped back out. "They say you've known her longer," he said to Epps, in a voice that didn't even pretend to not carry clearly. "Is she always like this?"

Epps looked at Mikaela, who had her fists planted on her overall clad hips, and shook his head. "My man, I came here to get _away_ from the dangerous assignments, and that's a loaded question."

Roadbuster voiced a burst of static that Epps had long ago learned to hear as laughter. "Smart mech," he answered.

* * * *

"No," Mikaela said. Her voice was ragged, breaking, and she didn't care. It was Mission City all over again, it was _worse_ than Mission City, it was the end of the whole fucking _world_ and they were _not_ saying what she thought they were. "No, no, no, no, _NO_. NO. No, I won't. You can't..."

"Stand _down,_ " Roadbuster hissed. They were eye to eye, he leaning down, she twice again her normal height, encased in the best steel and cybernetics that alien tech could make. It pulsed around her, augmented her, and she knew it wasn't as strong as their armor, knew it wasn't invincible, but for just a little bit it had made her _feel_ that way. Until the burnt out gutted ruin of Chicago's skyline had come into view and Roadbuster had unequivocally burst that bubble. "Stay _here_."

"No!" She was half sobbing, her breath caught up somewhere tight and awful in her chest. "No, no, you have to let me come, dammit, Roadbuster, this is _my_ world, that's _Chicago_ , those are _people_..." She made herself draw in a breath, sucking it in deep to steady herself with. "I'm a medic, you know I am, you said it yourself, Ratchet's been training me, you're going to _need_ me..."

"We'll have Ratchet," Roadbuster said grimly. "I need _you_ to stay _here_. Start the triage prep, get a supply line going." She must have made an abortive movement, the hydraulics of her suit hissing, because his hand closed fast around her, fingers wrapped around her arms and torso in a gentle grip that belied the fierceness of his tone. "Stand _down_ , girl." He let her go cautiously and flicked a fingertip - a little harder - against the blue-green insignia that she had so proudly painted onto the chestplate of her armor only a week before. "You want to wear the symbol? You want to call yourself a Wrecker? Then you _take orders_. STAND DOWN."

It took everything she had to bite back all the words that wanted to come boiling up, to bite them down and filter it into the only ones that mattered. "So help me, you'd better come back. ALL of you had better come back. I'll kill you myself if you don't!"

* * * *

They'd been told he was the resident geek, the braincase oddball in the ship full of combat junkies that were the Wreckers. Lennox had expected 'mad scientist' or 'lost in his own world geek' or at least 'slightly displaced from reality with a side of pyromaniac'.

No one had mentioned 'stand offish' and 'antisocial' and 'quiet', all of which left no clear impression on Lennox's memory at all other than the personnel tag on his mental roster that oh, yeah, the Wreckers had a geek.

Also? No one had ever mentioned the _fucking huge ass GUN_.

He'd been calling for snipers when Perceptor had interrupted him, all short, sharp and pissy British accent that he had to have lifted straight from the BBC. "What do you need hit?"

The gun, it turned out, had a barrel longer than Lennox was tall and could hit a Decepticon optic at twice the distance a human sniper scope could even target - and with enough force to take out not only the optic but the head it was attached to.

Geeks, he found himself thinking as the bridges came down. God bless the geeks.

* * * *

The frantic pace of college had nothing on life threatening danger. Late nights, crash course cramming, pop quizzes and lattes with a red bull chaser were _nothing_ compared to running for your life (and your friends' lives and the fate of the whole damned world) through a rubble strewn battleground with explosions spurring you on as you dodged deadly aliens.

Sam had forgotten what it felt like, giddy and sickening all at once. He'd forgotten the knife sharp focus that narrowed the entire world down to a sliver of intensity, only to blow it back out again when the battle was over in a deafening cacophony and the hysterical realization - had he done that? Really? _Really?_

He'd forgotten the sheer effervescent relief of being alive, he'd forgotten the spiraling _high_ of doing what was right and standing with the victors.

He'd forgotten what it felt like when the adrenaline wore _**off**_.

The world was moving in sluggish slow motion. Truck, he realized dimmly. Just a truck, not a bot, an open topped army troop transport of some sort. Carly was tucked against one side, Epps sprawled on the other, and the only way Sam knew it was because he could see Carly's hand clenched, white knuckled, with his own and occasionally he glimpsed Epp's boot knocking against his own ankle. He couldn't feel it, either of them, but he could see it, just like he could see the ruin of Chicago's streets passing by in fits and starts so the truck had to be moving. He couldn't feel that either. He couldn't feel much of anything except a sort of dull chill and a world sucking, brain eating utter fatigue. The only reason his eyes were still open was because he was so tired he'd forgotten how to close them.

Worth it, though. Monumental crash and bruises he'd be feeling for weeks or no, so _very_ worth it.

Carly caught his eye and gave him a wan smile. Sam tried to smile back and he must have managed it because she squeezed his hand and yeah, _that_ was worth it too. Totally.

The National Guard was setting up disaster relief around Chicago but NEST had their own temporary mobile base already well in swing. Their truck was one of the last of the convoy to pull in - which was fine, it was good, there were wounded to evac first, hale bodies last, Sam wasn't army but he knew the drills. The space NEST had claimed was a bustling mess of men and bots and trucks, and the near but distant _whup whup whup_ of helicopters lifting supplies in. Sam managed to find his feet somehow when the truck stopped and between them Epps and he helped Carly down.

Sam was looking around for anything familiar - a flash of yellow, or green, or blue and bright flames - when he nearly collided with a face full of cherry red armor. It brought him up short, Carly bumping into his back, and the mech who'd nearly run over them both reared back on their heels, taking a half step back.

'Red' was linked to a name in Sam's exhausted memory, one of the new bots he hadn't interacted with much and he was struggling to recall it when he belatedly realized that the piece of armor he'd run into was the lower edge of a chest plate, not a shin plate, and the mech in front of him was far too short to be Mirage. Downright _tiny_ by Cybertronian standards, as small as Jazz had been, or Arcee, or even smaller, and really, he found himself thinking, what the hell did something that small turn into - a moped? A Smart car?

Whatever it was, it was new, and had to take a step back and then scramble a bit to steady the heavy load of steel beams it was carrying, and Sam, whatever else he was, was a Witwicky and the first human the Autobots had made contact with and there were _manners_ damn it, even if he was bruised and so tired he could barely stand. "Oh, hey, sorry - sorry, our bad. Um, hey, look - you're new, right? I'm Sam, Sam Witwicky. Grandson of Archibald Witwicky, who had the glasses with the code with the whole Allspark thing, I'm sure they told you about that, and..."

The distinct sound of a transformation cut off the flow of words - thankfully, Sam thought, because there was just no filter between brain and mouth when he was tired or nervous and he was so damned tired he wasn't even sure how he was fitting words together. The sound was different, though, as was the transformation - more stilted, with a steady beat to it, like clockwork mechanisms, and the transformation itself was almost _mappable_ , clear and trackable and Sam could have sworn it actually obeyed the laws of physics with parts sliding understandably into other parts instead of the wild chaos of whirling bits that most of them transformed with. He was expecting wheels, or a sleek little vehicle of some sort or...

The bot leaned down, beams carefully braced on one shoulder, and the face and chest plates slid back or down or aside and Sam found himself looking at a grease and dirt and tear stained face that was achingly familiar. She gave him a smile, tired and distracted and just a little wry, her voice that oh-so-familiar dry tease that he remembered so well. "I know, Sam. I _know_."

He couldn't breathe, which is why he had no idea where his voice managed to come from, squeaking up in an octave he had hoped he'd left behind in high school. "...'Kaela?"

He couldn't actually decipher what was on her face, he realized. He didn't _know_ , didn't know her like he thought he had, maybe didn't know her at all, this battle stained woman in an alien designed power suit that clung to her skin closer than the shorts he had spent an entire summer fantasizing about but in entirely different ways. Her hair was tied back; there were tendrils around her cheeks, there always were, and she blew one of them aside impatiently. "It's 'Firebrand', now," she told him almost absently, and then, as a mechanical sort of ruckus broke out somewhere behind Sam, she straightened sharply, irritation crossing her face. "God damn it... Roadbuster! Perceptor! Hold him down! Optimus, so help me, if you try to get up again before I get those connectors sealed off I'm going to beat you to death with your own slagging arm!"

Sam caught a glimpse of her profile, the same one he had kept in his memory, a moment before the faceguard of her helmet snapped back into place, plates rearranging until it was once again a small bot standing before him, a cherry red femme that was all strength and cool metal, Autobot insignia on one shoulder and the teal symbol of the Wreckers squadron splashed across her chest. "Sorry, Sam," she said, and even her voice was distorted through the metal, like a Cybertronian mirror twin of herself. "Gotta go before the big lug tears something open again. Catch you 'round!"

And just like that she was gone, not in Mikaela's curvaceous tread but in the deadly graceful but heavy step of a bot, NEST members automatically falling out of the way before her just like they would for any of the mechs. It wasn't until a truck moved to eclipse her that Sam found he could breathe again.

Carly was clutching his hand and Sam wasn't sure if the trembling was hers or his, though he thought it had more to do with adrenaline and fatigue than fear or... whatever. "Was that...?"

He swallowed twice. "Yeah," he managed thickly. "Um. That was... yeah. That was Mikaela." He gave himself a good shake, mentally, and a flash of bright yellow caught at the corner of his eye. He gave Carly's hand a squeeze, tugging her close. "C'mon, there's 'Bee. I wanna go make sure he's okay."


End file.
